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image
Romantic visions of reuniting with returning veterans filled advertisements
in the waning days of the war and into the postwar period. Shown above is
a Greyhound Bus advertisement. (Folder 19, Box
37, Defense Council Records, OSA)

"To Be Treated Like Normal Human Beings"
Nearly 150,000 Oregonians served in the military during World War II and
over 3,700 died as a result. Men from each of Oregon's 36 counties served
in the war. They came from the remote ranches of Harney County
dozens of miles from any paved road, from the densely packed apartments
of central Portland, and from everywhere in between. From every corner
of the state, from every walk of life, men and women answered the call
to service and discharged their duties honorably. Along
with
those families that grieved sons and fathers and brothers who made
the "supreme sacrifice," many other families coped with disabilities,
both physical and mental, wrought by war. Meanwhile, most returning veterans
just wanted
to get on with their lives: marry their sweethearts, buy homes,
have children, and live the "American Dream" that they had deferred for
so long.

Demobilization churns forward
The demobilization of about 12 million men and women serving
in the U.S. armed forces at the close of the war was destined to be a drawn
out affair, both
for practical and strategic reasons. Simply moving that many people quickly
from the far corners of the globe would be impossible. But of course, the
real reason was that the world remained a very dangerous place in the wake
of the war as power vacuums developed around the world with the collapse
of the Axis powers. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin began executing his designs
on eastern Europe. Communist forces were on the march in China and elsewhere.
Dozens
of colonies
held by Britain, France, Belgium, and other powers posed control problems
as calls for independence grew louder. Moreover, many American servicemen
were destined to serve long duty as part of large occupation forces in
Germany and
Japan. While new inductees would eventually be sent to replace them,
it would not be fast enough for many anxious men ready to get back home.
Certainly, the great majority of the veterans would be allowed to return
to civilian
life but the process
for many, depending on the particulars of their duty and location, would
be agonizingly slow.(1)

President Truman at the
Salem Airport in 1948. He oversaw the demobilization of millions
of veterans after the war. (Image no. MJON0070, courtesy Salem Public
Library, Marion County Historical
Society
Photographs)

Just as President Truman was officially announcing
the surrender of Japan in August 1945, he was also making demobilization
plans, forecasting that over five million men would be returned
to civilian life in the next 12 to 18 months. He ordered the immediate
reduction in selective service inductions from 80,000 to 50,000 per month.
And he ordered the local draft boards to stop inducting anyone over 25
years old. Oregon's demobilization experience mirrored national events.
By March 1, 1947, 118,292 Oregon men and women had returned to civilian
life, leaving just under 30,000 in the service. Of course, some of those still
serving had chosen military service as a life vocation despite being eligible
for discharge. Many servicemen, because of disabilities and other
reasons, were discharged long before the end of hostilities.(2)

Uneven changes brought by war
The demobilized veterans who were returning to Oregon had experienced vastly
different circumstances during the war, depending on where they went
and what they
did. Some
men spent
the entire war in a relatively routine and uneventful environment not greatly
removed from their civilian experience--the 28-year-old civilian
auto
parts clerk who entered the Army and became a supply clerk
at a base in California for most of the war. Conversely, others were thrown
into a maelstrom
of death and brutality--the 18-year-old farm boy who entered
the Marines and survived the bloodbath at Iwo Jima, killing the enemy in
hand-to-hand combat, stepping over rotting bodies,
and watching his friends die next to him.

John W. Kelly was a man full of ideas and advice. Beginning
in 1943, he served for over five years as the executive director of the
Oregon Postwar Readjustment and Development Commission, charged with
smoothing the transition from war to peace. As such, he kept a steady
stream of
memoranda flowing to Governor Snell on a wide range of topics. But Kelly
was also a former longtime political writer for The Oregonian newspaper
so he couldn't help but offer Snell plenty of political advice, solicited
or not.

In March 1944 he wrote a memo to the Governor offering "a
smart bit of political sagacity." Kelly suggested that the governor
could capitalize politically from sending form letters of sympathy to
the parents or widow of Oregonians killed in the war. Unfortunately,
he got a little carried away in suggesting that others could forge the
governor's signature to save time. Kelly recommended that "the signature
of the Governor could be applied at odd moments and a stockpile accumulated
or one of the Governor's bright young ladies could write the signature."

He
added that while other Oregon politicians had sent congratulations
to citizens in relation to births and graduations, "I know of no
one who has siezed [sic] the opportunity to win the friendship of the
survivors of a soldier's family." It is not known whether anyone
explained to Kelly that sympathy from the governor expressed in a form
letter with a forged signature might be a bit inappropriate, no matter
how politically advantageous.

Six years later when Kelly died in his seventies, his old
colleagues at The Oregonian eulogized him
on the editorial page: "John Kelly was a mettlesome man, as most
Kellys are born to be--a staunch friend and uncompromising enemy. In
his heyday he was something of a power in state politics, and certainly
his interest never waned."(13)

Likewise, the communities to which they returned experienced the war in very
different ways as well. Some communities, far away from defense industries
or military bases, changed very little. They may have stagnated and lost
some of their population to migration during the war, but they were essentially
the same place as before the war. Others, such as Hermiston and Medford,
had been transformed by defense activity. Their populations had boomed
with many "outsiders" moving in and changing the culture. While their downtown
core would be recognizable, new businesses and slapdash
housing had been built to
cater to the boom. And, many of the faces that a returning veteran would see
walking down Main Street would not be familiar. Thus, the range of reactions
varied greatly from veteran to veteran and from community to community.
Of course, this was complicated further by the
size and strength of a person's family and social network before and during
the war. Those with strong family ties, close friends, and deep connections
to churches, clubs, and similar organizations were less likely to suffer
problems during their "reabsorption" into civilian life.

Jobs were high on the list
of priorities for returning veterans. (Folder
13, Box 36, Defense Council Records, OSA)

Veterans' expectations
Even before being discharged, many servicemen had very specific opinions
about returning to civilian life. Jobs were high on the list of priorities,
according to W.M. Kipplinger, who compiled quotations of their expectations
and fears from hundreds of letters in June 1945. One serviceman
wrote that "you can't take twelve million men, and train them in a new
life, and churn
them all
up,
and then
expect
them
to go back to the same old ruts." Others were frustrated that they would
be late for the "postwar scramble" for jobs. They had heard that
many civilian war industry workers had already quit their defense jobs "to
bed down in more permanent peacetime jobs, and the men think this is 'lousy
rotten.'"
One man said that "I think the country owes me a better job than I had,
but I don't think I'll find it if I am not discharged ahead of the mob."
Few of the men wanted to make a career of the military, saying instead
that they "already have a bellyful." Many of the correspondents
were growing tired of foreign lands and people, with one confessing that "for
the first time in my life I appreciate my home town." Others were fed
up with military rules and regulations and were concerned about more of
the same upon returning
to civilian life: "I don't want government regulating everything when
I get back." Some servicemen resented the frivolous civilian "high
life"
shown in photo magazines. One man grumbled that "Jitterbugs [people enjoying
a lively style of dancing] and other silly people ought to have to come
out here
and see
what we have seen and it would cure them."(3)

Home front expectations
Home front civilians had their own opinions and apprehensions about
how best to welcome and relate to returning loved ones and friends.
There was no shortage of experts offering advice on the subject in the
months before and after the Japanese surrender. But many returning veterans
had
some advice of their own, saying that people should "stop trying to practice
amateur psychiatry on them, don't be misguided by the widely published
attempts to tell you 'how to handle' these 'changed men.' Instead, welcome
the boys home naturally, as what they are--that is, fundamentally the same
boys who went away." The men complained about the "patronizing,
over-sympathetic, kid glove treatment" and were disgusted by "the
impression created among the home folks that most returned soldiers were
strange neurotics who didn't
want to talk about what they'd been through." One returning Army sergeant
recounted his frustrating homecoming:

"Ma kept watching me all the time, trying 'not
to do anything that would make me nervous.' Of course that just made
me nervous as hell."(4)

Many friends and family
were apprehensive about how to act around returning veterans. (Folder
4, Box 35, Defense Council Records, OSA)

Many returning veterans emphasized that each person needed to be treated
with common sense as an individual, not as a potential "problem child"
experiencing a "painful readjustment" to civilian life as advocated
by many of the "When-He-Comes-Home" articles. A Marine officer,
back from duty in the South Pacific, summed
up his opinion:
"The
whole
thing is wrong--trying to set up rules on how to treat men back from war.
There are no rules. Every man is different. People draw up plans about
just how they are going to act when Johnnie comes through the front door.
Then Johnny comes in the back door, and they're all upset." A lack of
common sense in much of the advice troubled some veterans. For example,
some articles
cautioned family and friends to avoid questions about combat experiences.
But one observer scoffed at the notion. While allowing that no man wanted
to be prodded into talking about the subject, "the normal service man wants to
talk. Why not? They are the most exciting, the most terrible, the most
important things that have ever happened to him in his life, or probably
ever will. What else would he talk about?"(5)

Most informed observers recognized that the great majority of returning
servicemen would not suffer a "painful readjustment." Major General
Norman T. Kirk,
Surgeon General of the Army, counseled that the average returning soldier
was "basically
the same man he was when he went away." Kirk argued that the military
discipline and experiences far from home had matured the average soldier
so that
"the large majority of these men can take their experiences in stride
and can return to their homes, their families, and their jobs finer citizens,
ready and able to shoulder their share of responsibility in the civilian
world." Others claimed that the challenges endured by the returning veterans
made them uniquely qualified as leaders in the community. Of course, because
of the wide range of individual circumstances involved, most of those
giving advice were right--at least part of the time. In fact, most veterans
adjusted to civilian life without significant problems, applying the self-confidence
and "can-do" attitude gained from years of overcoming obstacles
and learning new skills. But sadly, some veterans did fall victim to what
is now called
posttraumatic stress syndrome, which when left untreated
was destined to lead to despair and tragedy for many families in
the years
and decades after the war.(6)

Many veterans returned
to civilian life with disabilities. Governments offered services
but pushed disabled veterans to be self-reliant. (Folder
8, Box 1, Governor Snell Records, OSA)

Disabled veterans
Disabled veterans, depending on the nature and degree of their
injuries, had additional challenges upon returning to their communities.
Of course, throughout
the war and into the postwar period, a steady stream of disabled servicemen returned
home after varying periods of convalescence and rehabilitation.
Early on, the military, Veterans Administration (VA), state and
local governments, and groups such as the Red Cross, American Legion,
and Veterans of Foreign Wars developed related services. For instance,
the Army surgeon general published information in 1944 designed to be
used by family members
of disabled veterans to help smooth the return to civilian life. In one
such handbook, the surgeon general lauded medical advances such as blood
plasma, penicillin, improved battlefield evacuation, and the treatment
in Army hospitals, but put much of the rehabilitation burden on the shoulders
of the veterans' families.(7)

An early challenge for many families, according to the surgeon general,
centered on understanding problems related to disabilities. He noted
that "at
the outset, emotional upsets and black despondency are to be expected,
though some men accept their misfortunes with remarkable calm and fortitude."
The surgeon general pointed out that disabilities created an "unconscious
dependence"
on others. He argued that "gains in self-reliance made in the hospital
may be swept away by the fear of pity and by resentment toward a 'make-it-easy-for-the-boy'
attitude on the part of people at home." Resentments toward the Army
by disabled veterans also were common, with bitterness toward the men who
got the "safe jobs" and toward the system that put him in the foxhole
risking his life, eating canned rations, and "enduring countless hardships
which other soldiers are spared." Some disabled veterans also resented
civilians, especially those who avoided military service because of occupational
or
physical deferments. Many soldiers further suffered from an overly-idealized
view of their prior lives. They nurtured a sort of "dream image" of
loved ones, mother's cooking, and home town life that could not be sustained
in reality: "All too frequently, a man comes home to find the town has
gone to seed; home a bit shabby; mother's 'corn pone and fatback' not so
tasty.... Maybe some 4-F [a man designated not fit for the draft] married
his best girl, or his wife seems silly and superficial...."(8)

The surgeon general had plenty of suggestions for family members to help
the disabled veteran with emotional problems. His first pieces of advice
were to avoid
treating the man "either like a hero or a martyr" and, by all means" don't
patronize or pity or fuss over him." Loved ones needed to acknowledge
the disabilities in order to move forward with full rehabilitation. The
surgeon general told the story of a soldier recovering in an Army hospital
whose
nose had been shot off in battle. He wore a plastic nose temporarily until
surgeons could build a new one. When his wife first came in the room and
they embraced,
the man's nose was dislodged and fell to the floor. According to the surgeon
general:

"The wife's immediate reaction was worth
months of rehabilitation for she reassured her tortured husband with the
remark, 'I married a
man, not a face.'"(9)

Governor Douglas McKay breaks ground for a new Disabled
American Veterans Memorial Hall in Salem in 1948. After dissension
among promoters and funding problems, the hall was never built. (Image
no. 9082, courtesy Salem Public Library, Ben Maxwell Collection)

Key advice focused on helping the disabled veteran achieve independence and
self-reliance as quickly as possible. No matter how good the medical or
technological help, the final question of success fell to the veteran and
his family. Thus, "a man may be fitted with an artificial leg and
shown how to use it, but it is up to the man to work at the job of developing
power, balance, and skill." Family members were urged to give encouragement
but to "avoid doing things for the handicapped. Adversity may become
an asset with reassurance, guidance, and a chance to work things out for
one's self." Disabled veterans were strongly advised to get to work quickly
since
"idleness and boredom...breeds restlessness and discontent." The
Veterans Administration took the lead in providing many of the services
available for disabled veterans. The regional office in Portland prescribed
and financed
education,
training and other aids needed for their vocational rehabilitation. The
agency also paid compensation and pensions to disabled veterans and dependents
of veterans who died in the war. Moreover, the agency operated hospitals
in Portland and Roseburg for ongoing medical services.(10)

Living memorials proposed
Well before the end of the war, groups nationwide began planning for various
projects designed to honor the veterans of World War II. One popular
idea centered on the concept of "living memorials," which would not only
be "symbolic of their deep gratitude but will serve some useful purpose
in the community life." This was in contrast with the statues, plaques,
and obelisks common to previous wars such as World War I. In fact, one
leading group, the American Commission for Living War Memorials, had the
motto: "Memorials that live will help build a stronger, healthier nation."
This theme was underscored by the commission's direct
cooperation with the Federal Committee on Physical Fitness. By January
1945 the commission counted over 400 communities across the country that
were
"actively engaged" in planning memorials. Governor
Snell soon appointed a statewide committee to study and coordinate plans
in Oregon. Preliminary suggestions included swimming pools, playgrounds,
tennis and basketball courts, and summer camps for boys and girls organizations.(11)

Voters approved bonds to
fund construction of Portland's Memorial Coliseum in 1954. The building
was completed six years later. (Image
courtesy ballparks.com)

Over time the Oregon committee saw plans and proposals for
projects around the state. Local organizers sought the endorsement of
the state
committee
as a way of encouraging funding from local governments and businesses.
While the committee approved of most of the proposals it saw, it did decline
some. For example, plans submitted by the Oregon Museum Foundation were
not approved because they were "not in keeping with the physical fitness"
theme of the program. Among the dozens of projects planned were two in
the Salem area. One proposed to erect a stadium on a 100 acre site in Salem
"known as Bush's pasture." The other sought to create a one-mile waterfront
park
along the Willamette River in West Salem. La Grande also had big plans.
Organizers already had raised 27,000 dollars toward a new swimming pool
and were exploring the possibility of
a boat landing and a golf course. While Portland didn't have any definite
plans as of September 1945, the committee heard a report that "there is
talk of a coliseum to hold major indoor events such as large conventions,
fights, wrestling, ice hockey, automobile shows, banquets for 5000 persons,
and with a seating capacity for at least 15,000 people." While it would
be some time before completion, Portland eventually saw the construction
of Memorial Coliseum. Many other cities moved forward with plans in the
ensuing years. Some of the projects were never completed due to lack of
funding or the waning interest of organizers. Still, many others were finished
and continue to serve local communities throughout Oregon.(12)